Paddle-wheel



WM. HENRY MUNTZ, OF NORTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

PADDLE-WHEEL.

`Speccation of Letters Patent No. 11,231, dated July 4, 1854.

To all whom t may concern Be it `known that I, WILLIAM HENRY MUNTZ, of Norton, in the county of Bristol and State of Massachusetts, have invented new and useful Improvement in Paddle-` i Wheels for Navigable Vessels; and I do hereby declare that the same is fully de- Vscribed and `represented in the following specification and the accompanying' drawings, lette-rs, figures, and references thereof. Of the said drawings, F lgure 1 denotes i a side elevation of my said impro-ved paddle wheel; Fig. 2, an 'end elevation; Fig. 3, a vertical central and longitudinal section, and Fig. 4, a vertical central and transverse section of it. y

In the construction of it, I employ three circular wheels A, B, C, (which I aflix parallel to one another and at suitable distances apart) to a shaft D, which runs thro-ugh the center of each of them. The middle wheel, B, is about twice the diameter of each of the others, viz., A, C, and maybe termed the cutwater wheel. To t-hese wheels the floats, D, D, &c., E, E,.&c., are affixed, one set of them being made to extend from at 0r near the circumference of one wheel, A, to the wheel B, at or near its circumference, while the other set, viz., E, E, are made to extend from the wheel, C, to the wheel B, in a similar manner, the float being fastened tothe wheels in any suitable way.` These floats are not to be arranged respectively in radial planes, but are to have their planes or operating surfaces made to stand at an angle with a` radial plane passingthrough the a outer end of the, bucket, viz., that end which is at `the greatest distance from the shaft,

while the float in.` extending from Vthe middle wheel. to the outside wheel isextended in a direction opposite to thatin which the wheel is to be turned in the act of prop1elling, and so that its plane shalll approximate toward a plane that shall be tangential to the lesser wheel with which it is connected.

The shape of the float I have represented in the drawings, it being made broadest where it rst enters the water `or near where it is connected to the cutwater wheel, while it is narrowest where it is joined to the other wheel, although I do not confine myself to this precise form of float.

My inventionis based on two essential grounds, the first being that of extending one of the wheels, viz., the cutwater wheel,

scribed.

i Instead of ext-ending one wheel, viz., the middle wheel, beyond or making it of a greater diameter than the two side-wheels, a wheel may be ina-de by making the two side wheels of a greater diameter thanthe middle wheel, and extending the two sets of floats from the middle wheel to the two side wheels. Such a wheel, however,rI do not deem so advantageous in its construction as that wherein the middle wheel or circular rim of it is made the cutwater wheel.

By arranging the floats out of radial planes and with respect to the direction of motion (while in the act of propelling as described) eiect an important improvement in the operation of the oat on the water, as when itenters the water it is caused to do the same at a greater angle with the surface of the water than it does when it is arranged in a radial plane, and consequently its action upon the water or its entry into the water is gradual and not sudden as it would be were its whole' surface brought at once into `contact with the water. By giving a dip `to the float in the manner set forth, its outer end or that nearest the cutwater wheel is the first to enter the water, and the float `becomes gradually submerged, so that in striking into the water there is not that sudden jar or concussion produced which occurs when the fioats are arranged in radial planes, andthe nearer the plane of the float is made tangential to the smaller wheel to which it is connected, the less will be the jar or sudden concussion of the float on the water.

I would remark that a lateral inclination is given to the ioat so as to cause it, when it rises out of the water to shed or throw off the water in directions transversely to the plane of the center or cutwaterI wheel `B, the same enabling me to reduce the effect of resistance from back water.

On the fifteenth day of November, eighteen hundred and fifty three, Letters Patentv of the United States were granted to me for a new or improved paddle wheel. In such invention I employed for supporting its buckets a cutwater wheel and two wheels of smaller diameter, and I formed each bucket of a ioat and guard made to stand at an angle with each other, making the guard to extend from t-he rim of the cutwater wheel to the other or smaller wheel that supported it, and so that the guard when the wheel was in use should not only pass edgewise through the waterJ but endwise into it.

In my improved wheel hereinbefore described, I, have dispensed with the guard and make use of a float instead of a bucket, and I have made said float widest at or near the cutwater wheel and gradually decreasing in width toward its other supporting wheel. This last or new orimproved wheel although containing some of the element of that heretofore patented, yet differs materially from it in other respects and has been found in practice to be an excellent wheel.

1What therefore I claim as my invention or arrangement consists- In attaching each of the said paddles or oats to wheels or rims wherein that to which the broad surface of each of the paddles is attached is of greater diameter than the other and the position of the paddle is in 0r about in a line parallel to a radial line or one drawn through the center of the wheel shaft, and the face of the paddle is oblique to the plane of this line which stands perpendicularly to the axis of the shaft.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my signature this seventh day of December W. I-I: MUNTZ.

Vitnesses:

R. H. EDDY, F. P. HALE, J r. 

